Mexico Way 4

 This will be the third day of celebrations and tomorrow, the majority of people will leave for home.  It's been a most wonderful, magical wedding.  Miriam and Zach have been exceptional and so have all their family and friends.  

With a wedding to think about, you wouldn't believe that a couple could be the most considerate, vibrant hosts too, but they've looked after everyone, made sure everyone has been introduced to everyone else and joined in all the fun.  On Friday they had a rehearsal on the beach - I wasn't involved in that and went to the quieter adult pool instead.  In the evening, they hosted a dinner party for everyone, where there were speeches and so on too, and then we finished the evening dancing.  Yes, Z danced.  It would literally have been rude not to.  Even Charlotte, who has limited standing and moving abilities, found a pole to hold on to so that she could dance.

Charlotte has done fantastically well this week.  Although her balance centre is badly damaged and nothing can be done to cure that, it isn't completely destroyed (my friend Jo had that done when she was given antibiotics in hospital, with a known, but extremely rare side effect.  She had to use crutches for the rest of her life).  She's happy and relaxed and has also been taking a lot more exercise than usual, which she feels is strengthening her legs.

Yesterday was the wedding celebration.  It didn't start until 5 o'clock because of the heat of the sun earlier (even I had some pink on my back yesterday morning, despite my frequent applications of Factor 50, though it's gone now) but they'd had all the formal family photos done earlier.  When I say formal, I mean posed - as a family, they're anything but formal and Zach and Miriam themselves are exuberant.  

In fact, they were already married, back in Toronto, to get over any future questions of legality and so that they didn't have an extra level of complication here.  So Zach's sister acted as celebrant, which she did superbly.  

I don't know if I've mentioned that Zach is an actor - he's best known for a Canadian TV series called F@mily L@w, which I've not seen, but I'll have to watch, obviously - and Miriam is a scriptwriter and producer.  She has lived in the US, when she was at university in Florida, and in Australia, as well as her home countries of Britain and Holland and she has the knack of making and keeping friends forever.  That we all travelled from everywhere shows how she is loved.  Zach is her equal in this too, they really are a great couple.

I will add photos in due course, but I'll have to find the connector to upload them from my phone, as I don't really want to fill up my Cloud usage with all the junk photos I never delete from my phone.  Will I ever get sorted out?  It seems unlikely.

Mexico Way 3

 I think that everyone has arrived for the wedding on Saturday by now.  The Australian contingent turned up today, those from Scotland came last night.  

Whilst not pretending to be a better swimmer than I am, at least I can join in and not stand, looking awkward.  I've had enough sun and cocktails for an hour or two, however.  I'm sitting in my room, eating a banana instead.  I'm almost tempted to go to bed for a nap, but that could lay me out for a couple of hours and stop me sleeping tonight.  So I'll have a walk, now it's not so warm - it's actually been quite windy today - and then read for a while, until people start to gather together.  I've probably met about half the guests by now and maybe have around 20-something names pegged.  

I've booked a couple of excursions for next week, which should be enjoyable.  I'd planned to have a spa treatment day on Tuesday, until I saw all the prices and now I'm thinking about it.  Charlotte is leaving on Monday, so I'll have to say goodbye to her and anyone else who's going then too, because I'll leave for Chichén Itzá just after 7am.

Mexico Way 2

 By the time Charlotte was up, showered and dressed, it was 9 o'clock, which is a perfectly civilised time to have breakfast, but it felt like lunchtime to me and, though I don't tend to get hangry, I was decidedly hanxious and not feeling very well.  Fruit and yoghurt put me right and I carried on with cheese, onion, guacamole, salsa - actually, it was all fairly random.  But I'm not entirely sure about some of the Mexican breakfast dishes (for breakfast, that is. Fine later in the day) and I don't fly thousands of miles for egg and bacon.  I'll investigate the tortilla station and the omelette station during the rest of the week.  

Afterwards, we started to meet more members of the 111-strong wedding party, including the bride and groom.  I had a lovely day.  Everyone is so friendly and happy.  People have travelled from many countries, there are whole families, the youngest child being 104 days old and adorable.

We've all got inclusive packages, which makes food and drink easy.  There are different levels, mine being slightly higher than Charlotte's as I get a half bottle of tequila in my room every three days, plus some money-off vouchers for the spa (these will amount to 10%-20% off, so obviously the aim is to encourage me to spend more).

Today, there's the stag and hen dos, or rather bachelor and bachelorette parties.  They've hired a boat for a luxury trip.  Both the men and women on the same boat, which is a nice idea.  I don't know what I'll do yet, except that I want to book a couple of trips for next week.  Can't come without seeing some archaeological sites.  I might make it into the pool, who knows?  Yesterday, I opted out as, by the time we'd chatted and relaxed, it was after noon and the sun was too strong for me without a hat.

In the afternoon, we made bunting from cloth provided by various people.  Katie, chief bridesmaid, donated three dresses from previous weddings where she was a bridesmaid - they were all lovely, but you can't really wear them again.  Eventually, rather late, a group of us went for a Japanese meal, which was delicious.  In an international hotel, one might as well eat what's there - there are several restaurants - and not be hung up over local food, as it won't be local at all, anyway.  

The only fly in the ointment is a blister on my foot.  I brought some sandals - I had two identical pairs as they were comfortable and I liked them, and wore one pair last year, so brought the second.  Unfortunately, they rubbed.  Not much, but it's hot and humid and a fairly long way from my room to the hotel complex and walking there and back has done me no good at all.  I do have plasters and blister plasters,  but I need my foot to have recovered by next week.  

Mexico Way 1

 I've brought my laptop, which I don't usually do on holiday, but I'm expecting to wake up fairly early, so hoping to get some work done then, which won't take up the rest of the day and my thoughts - that is, I won't be worrying about all there is to do when I get home again.

Charlotte (aka MoB) had her centre of balance damaged some years ago.  She's not quite sure what happened to cause it, but it was trauma to the head in some way, not illness or a side effect of a drug.  Anyway, though she can walk, she is quite wobbly.  She'd booked assistance at the airports, but it was still useful for me to be there to help.  Unfortunately, I'm staying on longer than she is, so she'll have to make sure she isn't left alone on the way back.  She's resourceful and not hesitant about asking for help, but I do feel bad about it.

The journey was fine, right up until baggage reclaim, which took forever.  We were among the last 30 to get our bags back and then, unfortunately, we'd booked transport to the hotel with different companies, so I had to abandon her.  I haven't heard about it yet, we didn't catch up with each other later in the evening except by WhatsApp.

The good thing about travelling west is that you can have a lie-in and still be up early.  Now half past seven, I read in bed, had a leisurely shower, unpacked, made coffee (nice coffee machine) and I'll text MoB to see if she's up yet.  She must have been exhausted last night, everything is more tiring when you have a disability.

The room is very comfortable and spacious, with a balcony.  There's also a sofa with a coffee table and a small dining table with two chairs and a desk with another chair, which is a lot more sensible than many hotel rooms.  Of course, the bed is huge and very comfortable - it's true that the bed is really the point of a hotel room, but all hotels really go to town about that now.  Lovely quality bedlinen and I slept soundly - not too surprising, I'd actually been up for 24 hours at least, though I had an hour or two's sleep on the plane.

Ronan - not sure if I mentioned this - flew into the same airport a day earlier, for a business trip.  Sadly, he can't stay on - I asked if he could, it would have been lovely, if only for a couple of extra days, if he could have come on here.  But he's got the children this weekend and work on Monday, so it's really not feasible.

This may take a while...

 I have to submit an account recovery form and that wants a copy of a bank statement or utility bill, plus photo id.  I'm fairly sure they never asked for that when it was first set up, so I'm puzzled, but there we go.  Anyway, I don't have time at present.  I'm taking my laptop with me while I'm away, as I've got a lot of work to catch up on (this is dismal, I've never had to do that before) and I'll try to work it all out over the next fortnight.  I'm still getting emails about my account from the website host but, when I try to sign in, it says they have no record of that email address.  

Anyway, it's all been quite chaotic here, for one reason and another, every one of which is because I've been helping people.  Never a good deed goes unpunished, as they say.  I have, at any rate, managed to get my clothes sorted out and my papers together (not the work ones, but the travel documents) and it's suggested that I take US dollars for tips and so on, which I already had.  I'm not going to get any Mexican money, but will get cash out there if I need to - I don't expect I will.

Once I get back into my blog account, I'm seriously considering returning to this one.  I'll have to ask Ro if he can bring all the posts back here - he was able to migrate them from here to there, so it might be possible.  I'm paying for this and getting a poor service.  The host was bought out by another company and I don't think much of it.

I've realised that the hotel I'm going to is a rather dressier place than I'd expected, so I'm packing all my best clothes - not sure which I'm going to wear to the wedding. I have three outfits bought for weddings and I'm taking all of them.  

Next, I have to gaze dolefully at shoes and think, oh well.  They'll do.

Something isn't working and it isn't Z

 Yet again, my other blog isn't available and I don't know what's the matter.  I pay all the fees that are due automatically, I'll have to look into it.  I know some people still have this on their feed reader, but I've already had someone ask what's up with the Razorblade.

I'm rather busy this week - should be doing something completely different at the moment but it's been a distracting morning.  My sister's boiler went off again - it's just the pressure tap, but it shouldn't keep needing to be dealt with and the last time was less than a week ago.  Even then, the nuisance is not doing it, so much as having to get down the loft ladder and go up into the attic, where a previous idiot plumber thought it was a good idea to put the boiler.

Dilly was pregnant at the time so, when the plumber suggested putting the new boiler in the attic, to make more room on the kitchen walls, she protested.  Al and the (not so) Sage went along with the idea, however - I didn't know about this aspect for years and said to her, she should have insisted that I was consulted too, because I'd have said no - and, to make things worse, it was before the days when you had a separate remote control and so, if ever it didn't work or she needed to change the timing, she had to wait for Al because a pregnant woman who isn't great with a loft ladder that's constructed for a man's height can't manage.

When we needed a new boiler, I said I thought it should be down in the kitchen again but the now plumber assured me he'd cured all the faults that the previous plumber had created, so he persuaded me that it would be far simpler to leave it up in the attic.  After it was all done, he showed me how to do the pressure valve.  I was pretty horrified - I haven't had a boiler for decades, because I have the Aga - and asked how often it needed to be done.  He sort of sniggered.  Does one ever learn not to go against one's instincts?  If ever I leave here, I will not have a gas boiler.  

Anyway, I've asked the guy to come round and give the boiler its annual service a month early, because this shouldn't be happening so often.

Wink has been in India for the past 6 weeks and I'm going to Mexico next weekend.  Life is busy here, in the meantime.  

Z lunches out

 I may return to Blogger, my other blog is playing up.  I don't know whether it's my server or Wordpress or what, but I can't get into it tonight and I'm losing patience.

It's now six months since Tim died and his house in Reading is on the market.  It has to be sold, I am not moving there and it would be absurd to keep both of them.  It's a lovely house and would make a wonderful home for a new family, especially if they love to throw parties.  It's perfect for parties.

Today, my sister Wink and I took my younger son Ro out for lunch at his local pub, which was really excellent.  His small children were with us and the children's menu was a decent one, including the option of the Sunday roast that Ro and I had.  The children were adorable and behaved very well.  It's worth getting children used to being in restaurants, if possible, because they learn how to behave in company.  Young Perdita had fish fingers, mashed potato and peas and she pretty well ate the lot, and it was a generous portion.  She's only just two, but she has a very healthy appetite.

I'm lending Ro my car, because I've bought an electric one - I've kept Tim's lovely 14 year old BMW and it is expensive to run, so I've got one that's cheap to run, to balance it.  But Ro could do with a car and it's a decent one, so this makes sense.  We had a quick run with it this morning - it's the first time he's driven an automatic and he didn't quite know what to do with his left hand or foot.  It' won't take long for it to be second nature.  I've always alternated between automatic and a car with a clutch, it's fine ... mostly.  Next time I go to Reading, later this month, I'll go in the BMW and it's fine until, after a long time on the motorway, you come to a junction and, ahem, forget about the clutch.  I haven't actually stalled yet.

If you're used to an automatic, an electric car isn't that different.  A few things to learn, though, no doubt I'll report back.

Sometimes I think that Tim is just behind me, but I don't look back because he isn't.  It's all very dismal and lonely, but of course it is.  I cope as best I can, and my holiday in Atlanta, back in January, was wonderful and did me a lot of good.

Comfort comes in odd ways

 From 21st September

I drove back down to Reading this morning. It was the last thing I wanted to do but I'm having to share my time between Norfolk and here for now. I have a list of things to do over the next few days - notifying all the other companies etc and changing direct debits, getting the house valued, going through music to choose tracks for Tim's funeral and starting to sort things out. First will be his clothes, which will be put into bags, taken back and put into the Scope charity bin at the village hall. He's got a surprising amount of clothes in the wardrobes and drawers, but they're nearly all old because everything he wore most of the time is in Norfolk - where I've got to do the same job.

First, though, I had an appointment to see Tim, to say goodbye. He'd already gone, of course. I talked to him for ten minutes or so and stroked his face and his hand, then left. 

I'd had a bit of time at the house before that, which I used to look for documents, the one I needed being Viv's probate certificate. The solicitor had mentioned that Tim had told her that Viv's name had never been taken off the title deeds of the house - Viv was Tim's late wife. So I needed proof that he was the sole owner. I looked everywhere possible in the house, with no result, so went online to order a replacement. It's a mere £1.50 to access online and is a simple process. I had found Viv's funeral service leaflet so knew the date. But I ran out of time to finish the order and was going to do it later.

Having arrived back, feeling even worse than I had all day, it occurred to me that Tim's office, unused for a few years, was outside in the brick-built shed. It looks like a garage, but inside there are two rooms, the other being a toolshed, and he'd told me that he used to do all Viv's admin when she was an Ofsted inspector, some 20 years ago. Perhaps the papers were there.

It took me a while to find the keys, but I got in there and found a filing cabinet. Neatly labelled files at the top, box files in the lower drawers. It's all there. All his bank accounts and investments and all the papers I needed. Tim didn't really send me there, of course, but I think I'll choose to believe he did, because it's some comfort at a wretched time.

I've rather hit the buffers now, but nice people are coming to clean the house soon, so I'll just clear away anything in their way and then browse through music for a bit. Admin can wait until tomorrow. Lovely friends have invited me over tonight, so I won't be alone this evening. 

Lovely Tim

 People don't update bookmarks and notifications any more - I know that I don't.  I use a feed reader, so at least I know when blogs have been updated, even after several years.  But I touch base here once in a while, if there's something to say that you might feel you'd want to know.

I wish I didn't have this to say today, but I'll have to.  My Tim died a fortnight ago.  It was sudden and unexpected, though he was waiting for an evaluation to decide on treatment for a failing aortic valve.  There isn't much more to say, I've had to repeat the tale too many times already.  He died at his house in Reading, so I'm holding his funeral there and then bringing his ashes back here, where there will be a short service in our local church, where we were married.  

People are looking after me but it's hard to bear it.  There isn't any alternative, there's too much to do.  

Family getting together

 Blogger is becoming impossible.  I don't often write here but I've started a post twice and, after a couple of lines, everything I've written has vanished.  This will be my final attempt.

I've continued to blog on the newer site, of course, but i know some people only have this one marked.  So, a quick update, from the middle of lockdown 2.

Rose and family moved out during the summer from the annexe.  She had been my very welcome guest for nearly six years and her Boy lived there too, once he'd finished university.  A year or so ago, he moved his girlfriend in and then Rose moved her new partner in.  Everyone got on well but the whole thing wasn't really sustainable, especially once lockdown came along and, in the end, Boy and Girl moved to Ipswich and Rose and Man moved nearer to Norwich, but still on the edge of a village next to a field.

We were perturbed about the prospect of the annexe being empty - there was no question of renting it out. The council had allowed me to have a friend living there as a guest, but it's a family annexe, not a letting property and that's fine by us.  It adjoins our house and you have to be very confident of a relationship to have anyone else here.  I didn't have anyone else who I thought I'd welcome except for a short time.  But it suddenly struck me that my sister Wink wanted to move up here and, though she'd been thinking of buying a place - no one thought of taking away Rose's home! - she might like to move in.  So, in short, we asked and she said yes.

It's been several months' process, but she finally moved in this week.  And all is well.  

Z chatters about anything but what's on everyone's mind

What strange times across the world.  I'm blogging (in The Other Place) to take our minds away from it - this has its disadvantages in that I won't have the memories of how it feels to look back on, but I see my role in life as cheering people up, on the whole.  Anyway.  http://razorbladeoflife.co.uk, if you're looking for it.

HNY and all that...

Trying to comment on a friend's blog, I find I've been signed out of Google.  I haven't of course, but I do get signed out of Blogger and it's quite a trick to get back in again.  I come here and I'm signed in but I go elsewhere and I'm not.  Of course, Blogger is free at the point of use, so not important to the mighty Google.

Hope all is well with you.  I do have notifications of a visit a day or so and, though I assume they're from spammers, if you're a real person and prefer me to post here than on my other blog, I could do both.  Let me know.

Z remembers the house - er, hotel - where she was born

A friend said that blogging with Blogger is awkward on a Mac, so I thought I'd have a go; though in fact, she uses an iPad and I'm on the desktop.  The desktop iMac, that is, for you literalists out there.

We went to visit my sister last week, which was a lovely break.  We visited Weymouth one day, where I was born.  LT grew up a bit further along the coast, so knew the town rather better than I did; though everywhere has changed a lot in the past half century.  He decided not to go to his home town of Bournemouth, he thought it would be too depressing.  However, we were rather gratified to discover that Weymouth seafront and the old harbour were much as they had always been.

This is the old harbour. The side where we walked still has cars parked facing the water, but now there are huge sleepers to stop them rolling into the water as well as a kerb at the edge, which is very sensible but, perhaps, removes the little frisson of daredevilry that there used to be.

And here, in the random order that Blogger always loved, are pictures of the Riviera Hotel, where I was born and lived until I was three or four. It looks magnificent as you come round the bend and down the hill but is, unfortunately, marred by the funfair in front. It has been nicely maintained but it's not as smart as you'd think such a fine Art Deco building would be.

Up and running

Not me, darlings, my other blog.  I just couldn't face dealing with it yesterday, though I had plenty of time.  I had a sense of despair at the thought of it.  I'd perked up by the evening however, so looked up the details and cracked on with it this morning.  It took quite some time with a helpful chap in IT support on the host website and now I've got a much better deal for less money.  He tried to point me in the right direction to set that up myself, but I knew that wasn't going to happen and pleaded uselessness.  Just as well I did because, it turned out, there was a fault after all and he had to disable *something or other* to get the blog back.

I appreciate this stalwart old blog, though, and was glad to use it.  So I'll double-post sometimes, for the benefit of those who prefer to come here.  The 'official' site is, again, razorbladeoflife.co.uk, all the same.

Thanks to you kind people for leaving comments while I've been here.

As the Bard said, what's .......

I can't now remember why, at dinner, Tim told me the Italian for onion.  I was intrigued though, because it's nothing like the French, which the English is derived from.  I looked it up in several different languages and I'm still puzzled.  It seems that both the Spanish/Italian/Portugese/Romanian come from the Latin, but so does the French, from a completely different word.

Time was, I'd have done all the research and discovered what I wanted to know.  Now, I'm not sure I can be bothered.  I will remain intrigued, without quite enough zest to mind.

We were talking about names, too.  I know several people who've chosen to change their name, for one reason or another.  Brenda was 70 years old when she finally decided to change to Zella and, such was the strength of her personality, no one ever called her Brenda again.  Sophie was called so by her husband-to-be, who mistook what her name actually was (not his fault) and said that Sophie suited her far more than Janet, and so it does.  Dorothy changed to Jane because Dot rhymed with Stott and she'd been teased for too many years - her mother (and Sophie's) never accepted it though, so which you called her depended on which side of the family you knew better.

Most people seem not greatly to like their given name.  I liked mine, growing up, because of the Z, mostly.  I enjoyed the slash - slash - slash of the Z, like Zorro (I was a child addicted to television, so have always been tolerant of computer games and so on), I liked the ë diaeresis, that the name was a Greek word, that it was distinctive and I didn't mind too much that no one knew how to pronounce or spell it, if they could remember it at all.  I quite happily answered to Snowy, Suzie, Zo or anything else, and still do.  Indeed, my friend Sophie and I were quite used, as adults, to answering to each others' name.

I really do call my sister Wink, or Winkie.  But her name is Melanie, though she's usually known as Mel nowadays.  Why she's Wink is quite another story, however.

Wince

Wince, our gardener, is such a nice man.  He's worked here for nearly six years, having been at the same job from the age of 15 until 60, when he was made redundant because the business closed.  He didn't want to look for another job, so decided to do odd jobs - just what we needed.

He rescued me, many years ago, when I fell into the icy river and, though I could stand, couldn't get out, and we'd always passed the time of day (what an odd expression, but you know what I mean).  He always lived at home with his parents, then his mum, never married, though he has got a girlfriend   and now he lives alone since his mother died a few months ago.  He's very interested in nature, conservation, photography, engineering and music, but it's not easy to know him well, he's quite self-contained.

He was such a help to me after Russell died.  I'd been really struggling to keep the garden going - mostly, the grass cut - for several years but, even though I thought I'd sell and move on, I didn't want the place I'd lived happily for nearly thirty years to be neglected.  So I bought some new equipment and Wince was very pleased with it.  He isn't as much of a gardener as I (theoretically) am, to tell the truth, and has sometimes dug up choice plants when he is carried away with the weeding, but that's accidental.

When he arrives on a Thursday morning, he wants to know if I have a Plan, and professes to be disappointed if I haven't.  I can usually tell what he has in mind, though, because he brings a wheelbarrow with any tools that I don't have and he does - today, it was a hedge trimmer because Rose had some tidying up in mind and Wince correctly surmised that I didn't have many jobs for him.  Often, I've mentioned two or three things that need doing, sometime in the next few weeks at his convenience, and he's done them all by the end of the day.  He just never stops.  Today, having done the pruning and tidying that Rose needed, it suddenly poured with rain - so he took himself off to the barn and split logs until the rain stopped.  Then he said he'd finished an hour early, so wouldn't take a full day's money.  As I said, such a nice man.

Food, glorious...

LX and Vagabonde have triggered more thoughts of proper English food - how could I not have mentioned scones?  British scones, not American ones, which are more like our drop scones, I think.  Simply butter rubbed into flour with a little sugar and mixed into a dough with milk.  You can add an egg and you can add some raisins or sultanas, but you don't have to.  Gently roll or pat it out, not too thin, cut into rounds with a cutter or simply divide into pieces with a knife, put on a baking sheet and into a hot oven for ten minutes or so, while you put jam and whipped cream or butter into dishes and make tea.  Simply perfect.

We love our cakes, the traditional English cooks.  They tend to be variations on a theme - whisked sponge cakes, either baked in a round tin or in a flat rectangular one, when the filling is spread on and they're rolled into a Swiss roll; or else creamed butter and sugar, egg added, then flour, with whatever flavourings you want.  The tradition is to cook in two shallow round trays, as a Victoria sandwich (you can sandwich with fruit and cream or butter icing) - but it was much this mixture that I steamed into a sponge pudding.  We loved fruit cakes, as everyday or rich as we wanted - I don't often make cakes, but when I do, the simplest is a boiled fruit cake, where you put the butter, sugar, dried fruit and some water in a pan, simmer it for a while, then cool and add eggs and flour, then bake.  There are pound cakes, Dundee cakes, Simnel cakes, gingerbread, parkin - parkin is a fabulous one, made with oatmeal - lemon drizzle, chocolate sponge, coffee and walnut ... it's a wonder we're not all fat.

Oh.  So we are.

We like preserves, too.  Do other countries make chutney?  I don't know if they do, to the same extent.  I've had mango chutney in India and some very spicy pickles.  Tim and I had pickled walnuts with our pâté and cheese for lunch.  I've never made them, because you have to have a walnut tree so that you can pick the walnuts when they're very young, before the shells have started to harden.  My father loved pickled walnuts but I didn't eat them for years, until I noticed a jar in the local deli.  Now, I buy them until they've sold out that season's produce.  Piccalilli (sp?) is one that I've never seen in another country.  I've not made that either, but it's mixed vegetables in spiced vinegar with the addition of turmeric, basically, I think.  My mother didn't make preserves generally, except pickled red cabbage.  I've not found the perfect red cabbage yet.  I made some, but I'd had to get a commercial mix of pickling spices and it had too much chilli in, it was wrongly proportioned and wasn't a great success.  We do make quite a range of chutneys and pickles, though.

I mentioned toad in the hole - the same batter is used to make Yorkhire pudding, which is so delicious that a lot of people nowadays eat it with any roast meat.  Correctly, it only goes with roast beef and is made in one big tin, not individual ones.  But hey.  Whatever anyone likes.

What I do love is a fresh seasonal vegetable.  I won't buy imported asparagus.  If served it, I wouldn't refuse to eat it, but it's one of the few things that, as far as I'm concerned, has to be locally grown and in season for me to buy it.  It's a traditional Norfolk crop, which is just as well.  I was telling Tin the other day about a meal I cooked in May or early June, coming up to 16 years ago.  I bought a whole fish from the fishmonger - I'm not sure if there were three or four of us, but it was big enough for the family and I baked it whole, seasoned with home-grown herbs.  I had dug up the first new potatoes, picked the first peas and some broad beans.  Everything was fresh and seasonal and simply cooked.  It was immensely special, as meals go, for that reason, and we all enjoyed it.  But, looking around, I realised that no one in my family knew why it was so special.  First potatoes and peas, all homegrown herbs and veg, perfectly simple fish, perfectly cooked - the only person I knew who would have felt exactly the same as I did was my mother, and she'd died in March.  

Glorious food

I still haven't sorted out my other blog.  I've probably lost half my lovely readers, who've stuck with me all these years and I'm sorry.  But it's rising to the top of the list, that job, as long as nothing more pressing happens tomorrow.

Tonight, we had kippers and roast potatoes for supper.  I remember my mother being a bit shocked, when she accidentally called on our neighbours, back in about 1964, at about 6 o'clock, and found them tucking into their evening kippers.  They were a breakfast dish, as far as she was concerned, possibly lunch at a pinch, but not appropriate for the evening meal.  I reckon that kippers are suitable at pretty well any time of day, though.  There's a saying somewhere that a British breakfast is just about right at any time of the day, and I'd certainly go along with that.

LT and I were talking about typically English - moving away from the whole UK as we're both English - dishes, the other day.  Roast beef, obviously, and actually roast any meat, including game.  Also fish - fried fish in batter and chips, grilled sole, kippers and bloaters, fried roes, they're all straightforward food for people who like to see what they're getting.  Whitebait.  Herring in all its forms - two of which, maybe three, I've mentioned already.  Cabbage.  Carrots.  Good honest bread and home made puddings, such as suet puddings, sponge puddings, rice puddings, syllabub and trifle.  Tim and I slightly disagreed about macaroni cheese - I said that macaroni has certainly been used in this country for over 500 years, so it counts, but he reckons it's very similar to meals in Italy and other countries; which I don't think matters - but there we go, let's compromise on cauliflower cheese.  Pan haggerty and lobscouse and bubble and squeak.  Liver and bacon - bacon, actually, the proper stuff.  Black pudding, tripe and onions, kidneys and other offal.  I've never eaten lights - lungs - though I cooked them for my dog, who adored them.  Shellfish - oysters, mussels, winkles and so on. Broad beans (fava beans, darlings) and fresh green peas.  Potted meat, sausages - how could I have taken so long to mention sausages?  Toad in the hole.  Steak and kidney pie.  Steak and kidney pudding.  Pork pie.  Stilton cheese, Wensleydale, Cheshire, Cheddar, all the delicious regional cheeses that guarantee I can't become vegan.  And eggs.  Fried, poached, scrambled, coddled (does anyone coddle an egg nowadays?  I don't), meringued - ooh, proper puddings can take another sentence.  Queen of puddings, Eve's pudding, burnt cream (yeah, there's crème brûlée but we share with our French cousins), apple pie, apple crumble, rhubarb fool, strawberries and cream, baked apple, gooseberry tart.....

Having said all that, our cookery is inspired from all over the world.  Why should it not be?  Sometimes I decide, or Tim decides, to be inspired by a single country, but mostly we're all over the place, in a good cause.  If it's good, we'll cook it and we'll eat it.  

The darling dozen come for lunch

The whole family came to Sunday lunch, which went very well.  Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding etc, followed by Proper Steamed Sponge Puddings and custard.  As traditional English as you can get.  Jam sponge and chocolate sponge, and almost everyone had a little bit of both.

Later, I went and played on the Ups and Downs with Zerlina, Gus and Rufus and, after they had all gone home, I was tired out.  I had a bath and came down again and couldn't really stay awake.  Asked if I was hungry, I had to say I'd rather go straight to bed, which I did before 8.30 in the evening.  The cooking did take a lot of effort, but I swung into action with energy and good cheer (the potatoes just didn't want to roast and I had to fry them into crispness in the end) and I was vastly grateful that LT took over all the jobs that weren't actual cooking - including hoovering, sorting out drinks, tidying, lighting fires ... honestly, he just cracked on and took all the burden - but, though I wasn't at all tired all day, I just unravelled by 7 o'clock.  I'm old, darlings.  I don't mind being old, I've always had a good many older friends and I've always appreciated them, but it can be a bit disconcerting to feel the age one actually is.

Anyway, the Baby Belling cooker not having quite come up to scratch in terms of potato roasting, I've ordered a new table-top cooker.  Splendid as the Aga is, I can't fit everything in and it's occasionally useful to have something else - and, in the summer, I aim to turn the Aga off altogether.  I've also, recently, bought a new, useful toy - I have nowhere in the house to dry more than a small amount of washing.  If the weather isn't suitable to dry everything outdoors, it has to go in the tumble drier.  But I found a firm that makes two-tier racks to sit on top of the Aga, plus an extra rail in front and - though it was expensive - I bought them all and they actually are very good.  It's a bit of a faff to carefully fold each item and lay it on top, but I haven't used the tumble drier this year yet.  

Z's week. Or Z's weak, possibly, who knows?

Sorry to say that a week has gone by and I've done nothing about the other blog.  I limit the stuff I deal with in a day, and it wasn't top of the list on any of them.  It's a nuisance, and sometimes frustrating, but the only way I can plod through things without getting overwhelmed.  Next week, I'm sure.

I typed out a list of 28 lots for the next auction today - it's not until October, but I've got more than half the lots booked in already, as well as a couple of potential new buyers.  I'm not sure how long I'll carry on with the sales - I do them out of nostalgia and friendship, mostly - the work involved is not so very arduous but it does take quite a lot of time, for what that's worth.  I'll plod on year to year, for the time being.

The family is coming to lunch on Sunday - it'll be my Christmas menu of roast rib of beef etc; it having been the first time we've been all together since then.  When we went to the butcher today, he'd had a run on ribs of beef, which was a bit alarming.  I was busy planning an alternative, but he kindly went and phoned the wholesaler, who can put in an extra delivery tomorrow morning.  One of the good things about local shopping.

Actually, the proprietor of the butchery died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, of an aneurism. It was sudden.  He was very involved in local affairs; having been on the council, a former Mayor, Town Reeve, he raised a lot of money for charities and catered at many local events.  His is the last butchery in the town, so we hope his wife will decide to keep the shop going.  There are two other butchers and an assistant there, and we think she will.  A couple of farm shops, which do their own wild boar and goat, some game and chicken, but not everything, there is certainly scope for a butcher.

We are quite lucky for food shops in Yagnub.  There's a fishmonger, whole food shop, deli and greengrocer within a few yards of each other.  There are also a good many places to eat out.  Our favourite opened again today, having been closed during January so any refurbishment can be done and the owners have a break.  So we hot-footed it down there for lunch.  Which was splendid.